There is always light to be found. There is always light trying to find you.
The light can change you, transform you.
Wednesday, I glimpsed the lovely sight of a row of commuters through a train window. Each finding their own fuel for the freezing morning grind in the light emanating from the rectangles in their hands. Light in the dark, window into the soul.
Thursday, I had a short-notice day off. Daylight was at first in short supply. As I travelled down to Brighton to see good friends, the rising sun slowly (almost imperceptibly) began to cut through the freezing morning fog. By the time I was on Brighton beach the November sunlight was dazzling, cleansing, perfect.
There is always light to be found in life. In all situations, no matter how severe they feel.
It is so easy to be blind to the light that is all around you. Or blind to the light that you need to go towards.
To see and feel the light around you, you may have to change yourself fundamentally. These words can be the easiest to say, the hardest to put into practice.
It is the easiest thing in the world to resist or reject change, even if this is so rarely an advisable approach.
The other day I came across some wonderful words about change, from filmmaker Danny Boyle*. You have a choice to embrace change or to reject it. But the latter won’t stop it happening. Boyle says*:
“You’ve got to go with it. And if you become unable to deal with it, that’s fine. Because it means your time is finished and it’s time for other people to take it on.”
Yesterday, I was amazed to see that the peas I planted in my garden a fortnight ago had germinated and are apparently thriving, even in the English climate in early November. The sunlight has somehow cut through to find them, creating change, creating growth.
The light can change you, transform you.
There is always light to be found.
There is always light trying to find you.
FOOTNOTES
* Boyle is here talking about the breathtakingly rapid evolution from traditional to digital filmmaking that he’s seen during his career. This quotation comes from such an unlikely source. Gentle reader, did you know that Keanu Reeves not only made a documentary, but that it is also pretty good? I came across said documentary after greatly enjoying Reeves’ two John Wick films the other week. The documentary is entitled Side By Side, and is well worth a watch (provided you have any interest at all in film production in the first place!). Perhaps inevitably, some copyright-defying personage has put it up on YouTube:
MJCarty 